{"id":1402,"date":"2026-08-11T17:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T17:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bahamakkawi.com\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:39:54","slug":"a-cry-in-the-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bahamakkawi.com\/en\/a-cry-in-the-wilderness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cry in the Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"It is painful to say that our country is moving, at an accelerating pace, toward a deep abyss and a perilous decline. Sudan today is confronting challenges of the kind that, as the late poet Salah Ahmed Ibrahim once put it, \u201cif even the mountains were made to bear some of them, they would collapse to their knees.\u201d\n\nUnless Sudan\u2019s political and social forces open their eyes to the immense challenges and formidable obstacles confronting the country, to the international and regional powers lying in wait and seeking to undermine it, and unless they prepare themselves adequately to face all of this, there is reason to fear a horrifying future and a dark fate for Sudan\u2014God forbid that such a fate should ever come to pass.\n\nHate speech is spreading these days like wildfire and intensifying daily across the country. This is extremely dangerous, for hardly any war has erupted without first being preceded by hate speech. This happened in Rwanda and Burundi, Bosnia, Cambodia, Somalia, and elsewhere, and it has occurred more recently in Myanmar against the Rohingya. The examples are too numerous to count. Because of the grave danger posed by hate speech and its direct role in fueling wars around the world, the United Nations designated June 18 as the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.\n\nSome Sudanese forces are now stockpiling weapons and military equipment in preparation for resolving political conflicts by force if necessary. Meanwhile, the merchants of war, through the dissemination of hate speech, are working to widen divisions and inflame tensions in preparation for igniting a civil war which, if it erupts, would \u201cleave nothing and spare nothing.\u201d\n\nThis is a direction encouraged by many international and regional powers. International actors are fully aware of Sudan\u2019s enormous resources and capabilities. They covet those resources and seek to control them, but they also know that this will not be easily achieved while the Sudanese people remain united, peace prevails, and the political system is stable. They therefore seek to ignite conflict in order to create the conditions through which such ambitions can be realized.\n\nThere are also regional powers that regard Sudan\u2019s stability, its movement toward exploiting its natural resources, developing its wealth, launching major development projects, and strengthening its position as contrary to their own interests and objectives. They therefore work to keep Sudan weak, vulnerable, and unable to determine its own destiny, so that they may influence its future and gain access to its resources.\n\nAgainst this background, in which Sudan can truly be described as a country under pressure from many directions, we find Sudanese political forces competing to strengthen their relations with external actors that covet the country\u2019s resources and seek to weaken it. Some turn toward the West in search of power, assistance, and political support, while others turn toward regional states seeking financial and political backing. Some political forces seek support from both international and regional actors while remaining entirely at ease, apparently untroubled by any sense that such behavior may be mistaken or by any pangs of conscience.\n\nSome of the political forces with which Sudan has been afflicted seek to monopolize power and political decision-making, appoint themselves guardians over the country, reject the participation of others, and distribute certificates of patriotism to whomever they please while denying them to others.\n\nAs a result, other groups become embittered, their resentment boiling beneath the surface. They begin to adopt the logic of \u201cif I must fall, let my enemies fall with me,\u201d reaching for their weapons whenever they feel threatened by marginalization or exclusion. This, in my view, is an extremely dangerous trend that we fear may mark the beginning of consequences that no one will welcome.\n\nMohammed Ahmed, the ordinary Sudanese citizen, is the victim of all this conflict, rivalry, and questionable political maneuvering. As an African proverb says, \u201cWhen elephants fight, it is the grass and the small trees that suffer.\u201d\n\nThe political forces engaged in these struggles rarely concern themselves seriously with Mohammed Ahmed. They remember him mainly when they need him to join a march or demonstration in support of their position against their rivals. If he is injured, or if he loses his life and becomes a martyr, they quickly turn away from him. They do not necessarily ensure that the injured receive proper treatment, nor do they seriously pursue investigations into the death of a martyr or seek punishment for those responsible.\n\nWhile Mohammed Ahmed struggles with great difficulty to provide his children with the most basic necessities of life, education, and healthcare, and while the ordinary citizen cannot afford school fees or even the cost of transportation, our supposedly \u201cinspired\u201d leaders compete over marginal issues and matters of little priority.\n\nAt a time when \u201ccivil forces\u201d across the world are working to build consensus, establish alliances, and search for areas of common ground with others, our leaders\u2014may God guide them\u2014devote their efforts to \u201cdiscovering\u201d points of disagreement, magnifying them, inventing new mechanisms of domination, and developing ever more sophisticated tools of political conflict.\n\nThe tear has become too wide for the mender to repair. Wisdom has disappeared from our political reality, and national values have declined. Conflict has spread and widened, the chances of confrontation now appear greater than the opportunities for harmony, and the possibility of war appears closer than the prospect of peace\u2014especially at a time when Sudan seems to have more enemies than friends, and fewer actors genuinely concerned with its interests than those waiting to exploit its weakness.\n\nAll these threats, challenges, obstacles, dangers, and fears concerning the country\u2019s future make it imperative for Sudan\u2019s different political and social forces to move closer together, strengthen cooperation, build consensus, and coordinate their positions.\n\nThey should adopt a unified stance aimed at safeguarding the country, preserving its unity, and protecting its highest national interests. Once the country\u2019s security and national integrity are protected, and once the threat of war and foreign intervention has receded, political forces can then compete, negotiate, bargain, and reach settlements in pursuit of their legitimate interests, just as political parties do throughout the world\u2014peacefully, consciously, and within the framework of the law.\n\nBut if the present situation continues, we may eventually find that there is no country left over which to compete or quarrel.\n\nFor this reason, this is \u201ca cry in the wilderness: if the wind carries it away today, tomorrow it may carry away the very stakes themselves,\u201d as Abdul Rahman al-Kawakibi, may God have mercy on him, once said.\n\n\u201cIndeed, in that is a reminder for whoever has a heart or who listens while being fully attentive.\u201d\n\nGod Almighty has spoken the truth.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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